CANO, Alonso

Compositionally pared down Crucifixion scenes that differ from the theatrical scenes of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, with their abundance of action and detail, were frequently commissioned after the Council of Trent (1545-63), whose resolutions were aimed at strengthening Catholic morality and faith; they became especially common in Spain. This large altarpiece, apparently painted for a Dominican monastery, is intended to be viewed from below and to encourage prayerful concentration.

From 1640 on, Cano’s technique became increasingly pictorial, that is to say, increasingly Baroque, acquiring some of the subtleties he had previously ignored. Perhaps his most important painting is the Descent into Limbo (in the County Museum, Los Angeles), a strange, rather illustrative composition, anecdotal in the movement imparted to the figures, but including one of the rare, and one of the most beautiful female nudes in Spanish art.

Alonso Cano’s was a life of considerable drama; before he became a priest, he had been unjustly accused of murdering his wife. He was a painter, an architect, and a sculptor. From 1652 onwards he worked for the capilla mayor of the Granada Cathedral, painting pictures illustrating the life of the Virgin; and at the end of his life, when about 1666 or 1667 he returned to Granada to present his plans for the cathedral fa�ade, he carved two colossal wooden busts of Adam and Eve as part of the same decoration. He left the Adam unfinished and it was completed by Juan Velez de Ulloa. The Eve shows Alonso Cano already in the 17th century looking forward to the effeminate, elegant imagery of 18th-century Granada. This face sparkles with intelligence and its coquettish charm has a hint of voluptuousness.

Alonso Cano was the only major all-round artist Spain produced. His most significant works were undoubtedly the paintings he made as court artist to Philip IV and drawing master to Prince Baltasar Carlos. However, the plan for the fa�ade of Granada cathedral, which he submitted in 1644, showed at least as much inventive genius.

Although Cano had to respect the nave structure erected by Silo�, he produced a most individual design which went far beyond the other contemporary solutions to this type of problem. He selected a framework structure resembling a triumphal arch, behind which he deeply recessed the portals and wall surfaces. This structure provided a thoroughly innovative rhythm and dynamism to the fa�ade, dominated by a round arch at the top of the central section.

Cano’s design, which was realized between 1667 and 1684, was imitated throughout Andalusia.

The picture shows the fa�ade of the cathedral.

The theme of the Immaculate conception was often present in Cano’s production, this example is one of the most important ones, dates from his Madrid period and anticipates the prototype that he’ll create when he returns to Granada.

Probably a fragment of a larger painting. There are two somewhat similar representations of Mary by Cano in Madrid and Granada,both are darker than this intimate picture painted with devotion.

Cano was a painter, sculptor and architect and worked for varying periods in nearly every large town in Spain - Madrid, Seville, Valencia and Toledo. His oeuvre is very rich, though more restricted in range than that of Vel�zquez or Murillo, for he painted almost exclusively religious subjects, keeping strictly to the accepted ecclesiastical tradition.

Cano never went to Italy but was strongly influenced by the Italian masterpieces in the Spanish royal collection. The composition of Noli me Tangere owes much to the inspiration of Correggio’s painting of the same subject, which was in Madrid at that time, and the colouring shows the influence of Venetian masters, especially Titian.

This painting, contracted on 23 November 1635, was executed for the convent church of Santa Paula in Seville. It is evident that the artist had mastered an Italianate manner of painting; the figure of the angel alone is sufficient to corroborate this observation. The partly clad body, the complicated, foreshortened pose, and the mastery of anatomical drawing are unique elements in Sevillian painting of the time, as are the deep perspective of the landscape and the delicate, translucent colours.

Cano’s mastery of this facile, sophisticated style suggests that he had passed time in Italy, although there is not the slightest evidence that he left the city until his final departure in 1638.

This painting and its pendant representing St John the Evangelist belonged to an altarpiece in the convent of Santa Paula in Seville. Three other paintings from this altarpiece are in the Wallace Collection, London, and in the Ringling Museum, Sarasota.

During his time in Seville, Cano had mainly been influenced by the work of Juan Mart�nez Montañ�s, as indicated by his St John the Baptist, very much representative of the idealized naturalism that was to become an essential characteristic of his work.

This painting and its pendant representing St James the Greater belonged to an altarpiece in the convent of Santa Paula in Seville. Three other paintings from this altarpiece are in the Wallace Collection, London, and in the Ringling Museum, Sarasota.

In this painting the Evangelist is represented as a youthful visionary in a characteristic Baroque, diagonal position, in a pose that returns later in the Romantic portraits of poets, as a pose appropriate for the sacred moment of inspiration.

There is a variant of this painting in the Prado, Madrid.

An Andalusian by birth and training, Alonso Cano, a painter, sculptor and architect, did most of his painting between 1638 and 1652, in Madrid, and later in Granada. This part of his career was divided between the execution of altarpieces and the portrayal of religious scenes revealing the highest qualities of an artist in love with beauty. In his conception of painting, Cano, a great creator of types, stands somewhere between Zurbar�n and Murillo. His frequently rounded forms are softened by lively and harmonious, but never strident colors. Strong lighting and vigorous composition give his figures, almost always religious, their distinctive plasticity.

The most noteworthy of Cano’s altarpieces are those in the church at Getafe (near Madrid), dating from 1645. From that time on, Cano’s technique became increasingly pictorial, that is to say, increasingly Baroque, acquiring some of the subtleties he had previously ignored. Perhaps his most important painting is the Descent into Limbo (in the County Museum, Los Angeles), a strange, rather illustrative composition, anecdotal in the movement imparted to the figures, but including one of the rare, and one of the most beautiful, female nudes in Spanish art. His sense of drama finds its most intense expression in his Dead Christ Supported by an Angel, in the Prado. Cano’s gifts as a landscape painter are apparent in a number of pictures with Biblical themes, for example in his Christ and the Woman of Samaria, in which the lights and darks have a strongly naturalistic effect.

During his later years in Granada, Cano painted a number of other important works, like the Seven Mysteries of the Virgin, brilliantly colored canvases of monumental proportions painted between 1652 and 1664 for the main chapel of the Cathedral. Cano’s foremost achievement is undoubtedly the series of Immaculate Conceptions painted at various times in his career, including a particularly fine one in the Provincial Museum at Vitoria, and another in the oratory of Granada cathedral. Fate has not been kind to Cano’s paintings: several of the best have been destroyed in revolutions and wars.

This painting, hailed by Cano’s contemporaries as a masterpiece, was part of the main altar in the no longer extant church of Santa Mar�a de le Almudena in Madrid. Damaged and all but forgotten, the painting entered the Prado in 1941, where its qualities can now be appreciated as they fully deserve.

According to legend, the son of St Isidore fell into a well. Through the prayers of the saint and his wife, the water level rose miraculously so that the child was brought safely to the surface. Here, we see St Isidore standing in front of the well with his arms spread wide. The young woman is helping the child out of the well and looking towards her husband with an expression of astonishment on her face. Two servant girls in the background are commenting with eloquent gestures on the miracle. Two children and a dog, drawn towards the overflowing water, also discuss the event.

Cano links two themes in this painting: the miracle itself and the recognition of Isidore’s saintliness by the women. For the artist, this means presenting him in the manner of history painting and religious portraiture at the same time. He has solved this problem of duality by presenting the saint as an almost incidental figure barely involved in the event, a fact which has frequently been misinterpreted as a weakness of this painting.

A reforming prelate, a theologian, author of numerous books, and an abbot who rejected both wealth and images (for his monks he would sanction only the crucifix, St Bernard of Clairvaux is the important religious and ecclesiastical figure of the twelfth century. In this painting Cano depicts one of the legendary episodes of his life: the statue of the Virgin coming to life and moistening his lips with a few drops of milk. Called the Miracle of Lactation it is frequent in Spanish and German art. Cano represents the saint in white Cistercian habit, one of his attributes.

In 1652 Cano returned to Granada from Madrid and he took on the unfinished decoration of the cathedral. He renewed his activity as a sculptor, achieving the high aesthetic standard in such finely executed pieces as the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. The wooden sculpture has a harmonious and fluid quality which invites the observer to survey it by walking around the object. The composition is perfect, complemented by the simple colouring scheme in blue and greenish tones, set off by lavish gilding. Only an artist practiced in both media could achieve such a perfect symbiosis of sculpture and painting.